On Saturday we ran our first Group5 race for the 2011 season. It's been a while since we've ran a Gr5 class, mostly because there are a lot of new guys here and they don't have many cars yet, so we are working on the developement of all our classes a little slowly. Nevertheless, we gathered 15 racers for this friendly event, divided into 4 heats. 20mins of racing as usual, over the 4lane Ninco club track, simple rules, always non mag, only gr5 cars raced in the 1975-1981 period, and a lot of fun for all participants.All cars in the pit area:

It was really interesting all the way to the end. The M1 Evo3 cars had the edge over the Evo2 Capris but there were a few notably fast almost stock Fly cars, especially a front motored Capri that placed itself in a very respectable position at the finish line. The battle was fierce between Vassilis APR, Giaccomo, Giannis Fokianos and Maria (being 5months pregnant certainly affects the stamina and the ability to drive slot cars), who ended in that order. Maria fought a really hard fight with Stelios Prineas and his A310 in her heat, but Stelios faced some front end trouble at midpoint and lost time and places. Still his Avant Slot Alpine, clocked the fastest lap of the day at 9.108secs. Vassilis was fast, so was Giaccomo, and Giannis was the steadiest of the 3 of them, so at the end they all finished a lap apart from each other. Maria was 3 laps down and then we had three drivers on the same lap. Alexis, George Zourbanos and Petros, finished the 20min race only a few seconds apart! One lap down was Stelios, a furious drive but many deslots and some damage to the front end, left him out of the fight for the top3. A further 2 laps behind was Nikos Verganelakis with his black Fly Evo2 Capri and then there was another interesting duel. Timos and Dimitris with 2 almost stock FLY BMW 3.5 CSL cars, raced each other and had possibly the most sideways moments of all the other guys !! After all heats were over, final results were:

APR VASSILIOS - 123laps in 20:22.167 best lap 9,276s

ANDROVICH TZAKOMO - 122laps in 20:11.931 best lap 9,184

FOKIANOS GIANNIS - 121laps in 20:41.412 best lap 9,555

ATHOUSAKI MARIA - 118laps in 20:29.989 best lap 9,394

GAITANIS ALEXIS - 115laps in 20:23.344 best lap 10,123

ZOYRBANOS GEORGE - 115laps in 20:30.053 best lap 9,244

KOULOURIDIS PETROS - 115laps in 20:31.819 best lap 9,723

PRINEAS STELIOS - 114laps in 20:24.309 best lap 9,108

VERGANELAKIS NIKOS - 112laps in 20:31.703 best lap 9,679

KOULOURIDIS TIMOS - 107laps in 20:16.099 best lap 10,651

DIMAS DIMITRIS - 103laps in 20:34.171 best lap 10,464

KEFALLONITIS GEORGE - 97laps in 20:18.893 best lap 10,614

NISKOPOULOS CHRISTOS - 97laps in 21:32.556 best lap 9,952

NISKOPOYLOS THANOS - 93laps in 20:52.923 best lap 11,104

FILIPOGLOU VASILIS - 90laps in 21:25.430 best lap 11,662

Below are some of the pics of the cars raced, together with some info, were I had any

And Maria, the third almost identical BMW M1 Evo3 with Scorpion motor and F15 tires

Vassilis APR had another BMW M1 but this one had a Spirit Lemans motor, wide wheels from a standard M1, and F15 GT tires (20x11)

Thanos borrowed a Porsche 934 from Vasilis, this also had an evo3 chassis, wheels from the standard car and F15 GT tires

George Zourbanos had the Motul M1, with evo3 chassis.

George was given this Capri Evo2 from Petros, but faced controler trouble and did not very well

Petros raced this front motored Capri, stock wheels, stock rear tires, 21.5k slot it motor and finished on top of the FF cars

This is the other BMW 3.5CSL, that I borrowed from Vassilis and raced against Dimitris' BMW

Personally, this was the most relaxed and enjoyable race I have raced for a long time. I really like Gr5 cars, and especially this version of the BMW 3.5 CSL (I think it was the turbocharged car that Peterson and Nilson drove in 1976 at Silverstone), and I had a lot of fun, with extreme sideways moments in the last R5 turn that leads to the main straight. I think most of the guys had the same feelings, they all seemed to have a lot of fun.